"You are outgunned. You are massively outnumbered. You must win." These are your orders. Humanity has already fought its war against the machines -- and lost. AI death squads stand watch over every planet and every wormhole, the few remaining human settlements are held captive in orbiting bubbles, and the AIs have turned their...

Most of Arcen's titles are on promotion over at GamersGate with heavy discounts; you can find them all with this search term! GamersGate does provide serials that can be registered on the Steam platform too, and as usual with games by Arcen, they can also be ran standalone.

Thanks to Vivisector 9999 for the heads up. ː8bitheartː

AI War 2014 Collection (up to Vengeance of the Machine): $3.40 USD
AI War: $2.00
Any single expansion: $1.00
Children of Neinzul: $0.40

Recenze

"AI War breaks most of the genre’s rules. Which is precisely why it’s incredible… This out-of-the-blue one-man passion project is one of this year’s finest strategy games."
- Alec Meer, PC Gamer UK, November 2009

It’s a balancing act, with your own strength on one side, and the AI’s opinion of you on the other. Piss it off before you’re ready to face it, and you’re going to get squashed. That moment, when you’re finally in a position to turn the tables, is about as glorious as gaming gets.
- Phill Cameron, Eurogamer, February 2011

I think I’ve stumbled across this year’s Really New Thing. There’s a lot of 2009 to go, but I’ll be surprised if anyone else twists the RTS formula this dramatically and this effectively. And I’m hoping it’ll be the Next Big Thing, because it’s big, different, entirely unprecedented and an exciting way to play an RTS.
- Tom Chick, Crispy Gamer, August 2009

Having played this title at two distinct points in its life cycle what really stands out is the incredible dedication of Arcen Games in keeping on top of how the game evolves and expands. Even though a great many features have been added and tweaked and refined, it was possible for me to drop back into AI War after more than a year away and not find it to be a confusing mish-mash of feature overload. The post-release support is, quite honestly, the best I’ve seen for any game.
- Peter Parrish, IncGamers, February 2011

AI War is, quite simply, the best experience you could have with co-op or single-player real-time strategy in this or any year. It combines grand strategy with emergent AI to form an excellent game perfect for parties and multiplayer. It is easily worth double the price that the developer is selling it at, and anyone with any affinity or taste for strategy games should not miss it. It may be daunting at first, but an excellent tutorial and amazing gameplay mechanics alleviate this into a game that almost anyone can - and should - play.
- James Murff, Big Download, November 2009

Informace o hře

"You are outgunned. You are massively outnumbered. You must win." These are your orders.

Humanity has already fought its war against the machines -- and lost. AI death squads stand watch over every planet and every wormhole, the few remaining human settlements are held captive in orbiting bubbles, and the AIs have turned their attention outward, away from the galaxy, to alien threats or opportunities unknown.

This inattention is our only hope: a small resistance, too insignificant even to be noticed by the AI central command, has survived. These are the forces you will command. The AI subcommanders will fight you to the death when they see you -- but your glimmer of opportunity comes from quietly subduing those subcommanders without alerting central processing to the danger until it's too late.

You do have a few things going in your favor. Your ships are much faster. You have safe AI routines to automate defenses and mining outposts. You have production techniques that can churn out fully-outfitted unmanned fighters in seconds. There will never be more than a few thousand of your ships versus tens of thousands of theirs, but through careful strategy you must somehow reach and destroy the heavily-guarded AI cores.

Go forth into the galaxy, steal AI technology, recapture those planets you must in order to achieve your ends, and save what remains of humanity. But draw too much attention to yourself, and the full might of the AI overlords will come crashing down.

At the time of Writing, I have over 1000 hours clocked in this game.I have won four times on difficulty 7, once on difficulty 8. I got crushed in 3.5 hours on diff. 9Any other strategy game I load up (against AIS), the results are a foregone conclusion. I will win.

It has taken me over four years and six expansions, over a thousand hours... AND I LOSE ON 9.

This game is not simple. it is not forgiving, and it sure as heck isn't easy to learn.

If you are all about grand strategy but micromanagement leaves a bad taste in your mouth, this may be the best $20 you ever spend. Get the bundle.

This game is a rare gem, the type of game that only comes out of a small studio.

No other title I've played in the last several years has offered this kind of tactical depth, but to say it's just a great strategy game would be doing it an injustice. It's also a game that, despite its rather basic 2D graphics and rudimentary sound, truly captures the essence of the universe it portrays.

It's a dark, cold universe where humanity has been flung to the four winds, and is pursued by a ruthless alien AI hive across the galaxy as it fights, vainly, for its survival. It evokes the imagery and sense of encroaching dread of Ender's Game as it puts you in charge of organizing mankind's last stand - a suicidal breakout and attack directly against the AI homeworlds.

To get there, you'll have to cut a swath through AI controlled worlds, each with layered defenses, guard posts, mobile fortresses and a plethora of other tools at it's disposal to remind you that they are the masters of this domain, and make your beachhead a costly failure. And even if your beachhead is successful, you will quickly learn that you have but stumbled into the lion's den.

Each tactical victory comes with a price that is higher than the sum of all the troops that fell in achieving it - the closer you get to the AI homeworlds, the more viciously, effectively, and stubbornly it will fight. Well before you get within stone's throw of their homeworlds, the AI will begin to recognize you as a real and growing threat, and it will respond appropriately.

By appropriately, I mean it will attempt to destroy you using everything in its near-infinite disposal. If you expand zealously, like the scourge it believes humanity to be, it will crush you mercilessly without batting an eye. From star systems and galaxies near and far, it will draw from the hive and send the combined weight of a thousand navies against you. You cannot win this war traditionally. You must wage it like a guerrilla campaign, striking hard and fast deep in enemy territory at specific, high value targets, and hoping to escape with your remaining forces back into the night. You must attrition down dug in positions carefully, lest you give away your true presence and tip your hand. It is a war that demands long-term strategic thinking, tempered aggression, the careful use of ruse and concealment, and a sixth sense of when your foe is strong and when he is weak. It requires you to revise your tactics and force compositions constantly, as the AI will adapt to your strategies quickly. Like using hordes of cheap, fast, throwaway ships to attrition down the enemy? Well, right now the Ai is building a stealth smart bombing fleet that will be able to annihilate your blob before it can even react. Like bunkering up and covering your inlet wormholes with shields and hordes of turrets? The AI just hacked your shield and turrets with the hacker drones right on the other side of the wormhole you havent scouted lately, and not only have they assembled a strike force just on the other side, theyre now making a beachhead into your territory, using your shield and turrets for cover. That system, well behind the front, that's been quiet as a ghost for the last hour? As we speak there are AI stealth drones surveying its defenses, helping to paint a picture of precisely how much force and what tools will be needed to push you out of system and split a gap in your supply lines. Steamrolling the AI with your superfleet, sitting off the enemy's sector, waiting for orders to jump? It knows you're there. It's just waiting for you to commit, to jump into system, so it can spring on the black hole generators so you cannot escape. It will hit you with tractor beams, smart bombs, and long-range standoff fleets that outrange your crippled battleships. And then, as you helplessly watch your fleet picked apart, that massed invasion fleet that has been assembling just outside your territory gets the go order, and before long you are looking at a massed attack all along the front as the AI carries out probing attacks at your industrial centers - just as you are at your weakest. It only wanted you to think it was weak, to draw you into a fight on favorable terms, on ground where the tables were turned. It wanted you to commit the bulk of your forces to suicidal action, as it planned to pin your fleet down, envelop your industrial base, and destroy you.

The AI is THAT good. And that's on one of the more modest difficulty settings. On the higher settings, it goes from being a somewhat difficult campaign into a brutal, oft-unwinnable fight for survival. You have to employ the same cunning tactics as the AI to stand a chance. It amazes me that this was a two-man project; the gentleman who wrote the AI script for this should be working for the NSA skunkworks.

This game has been out for a while, and has six or so expansions now; if it sounds like the kind of title you're interested in, I'd reccommend the bundle. The expansions offer a number of new tools, ships, modifications, and functionalities to the game.

It's not the prettiest game to behold, but the gameplay is awesome, the AI is beyond amazing, and the replayability is tremendous. One of the best PC purchases I've ever made.

I love this game. It is without a doubt my favorite game on Steam. Just look at how many hours I've played, that's got to say something (like I should go get a life). Seriously though, the game is great. I have it, and I've bought about 6 other copies of the game for my friends because I believe in this one so much. Yes, I know the graphics seem backwards and uninspiring, but you'll learn as you play this game that it's actually better this way. Look past the graphics and into the mind of a monsterous AI.

This game is going to have a VERY steep learning curve at first. Once you get through the basic commands on how to move ships around, set up build queues, and construct your fleet, the game really opens up to you. You're going to find that this game will challenge your strategic and tactical thinking. If you think you're good at RTS games, this will push you to the limit. Do you think there isn't an RTS that can challenge you anymore? This one can and will. Are you just plain crazy, play it on the max dificulty, it's a bug if you can beat it.

There are a ton of units for this game, and I strongly recommend getting all the DLC. With the whole set you've got nearly unlimited different kinds of games. You'll find unit combinations that will fit your play style no matter what style that happens to be.

The AI is one of the most interesting things in this game. It will surprise you countless times. Just when you think you've figure it out, it'll show you a new trick. Look how much I've play this, it's still showing me surprises. The game still have times when it feels fresh to me. It's amazing that you can dive so deeply into a game and still find things.

I have played this game since before it was in beta and well before it hit steam. I think it should be mentioned that the games expansions make the game infinity more difficult to get started in the game. I had the luxury of having expansions added one at a time, having all 6 expansions available as a bundle sounds amazing, and is a great deal, but will make the game more difficult to understand at first.

I also started playing the game well before a tutorial was added [insert comment about "kids these days..."]One of my favorite games I’ve found and has provided me with more enjoyment then almost any other game.

I may be a little biased in that I liked this game even before I played it. When I first purchased AI war, it was on the Arcen Games site and they sent a little email about how they don't believe in DRM, and therefore I could always play using my key, and if I lost my key, simply contact them.

I then purchased this again on steam at a completely reasonable price. I like having my games consolidated in one place and this game was worth it.

I really can't say enough about how good this game is. I doubt even the folks with negative reviews would say absolutely do not buy it. Onto the game:

- great AI that you can tweak any way you like. Arcen even goes so far as to explain why the AI works the way it does and makes a plausible (sci-fi) argument about it.- vast array of ships for research- a million different galaxies all seeded with their own unique resources- Arcen keeps upgrading the game mostly for free, but each expansion is very well priced- statistics about each game are very in depth providing great feedback

I've read the negative reviews and the main arguments are graphics and UI. Personally, I'm impressed with the UI. Every single element is customizable. You can change any key, and there's a menu with auto management choices that make things easy for you. There are about 4 keys you can click while mouse clicking to make your ships behave differently and it's simple.

The graphics are not excellent, but it's a compromise between performance and graphics. This game will work on older systems, there are no glitches, it doesn't require high-end cards, yet it works even during battles with thousands of ships.

This game would be great if they introduced me into it in a way that made me want to play. Instead, even before getting to the tutorial, I am met with a screen full of options and game choices, with tutorials tucked away in the corner. If you decide to sit through the lengthly introductions, you may find yourself enjoying the game. I found the multi leveled view to be hard to adjust to when jumping right into the game, even with experience from other space RTS games.

If you want a space RTS that isn't like others, this could be your new favorite game. If you're looking for something to jump right into, look elsewhere! Time investment needed.

A very fun game, with a customizable play experiance and tactics that go from a shallow "Wave on wave of 'splosions approach to deep, twenty-hours ahead strategy. The graphics are sometimes a bit simplistic, but you can get some beautiful visuals during intense fleet battles, and its performance footprint can get pretty small.

Best of all, though it has a LOT of expansions, you don't really need them to get the best of the game. They add new ships and side functions, sure, but every balance pass and gameplay tweak is applied to the base game, and it even gets some full out new content from time to time. I'd definately say pick this up, since if you like slower paced strategy games, some configuration of it is almost certain to be your cup of tea.

Ai War is by far the most in depth RTS game I have ever played. The learning curve is rather steep but there are good resources on YouTube to help break the ice. The game seems completely and utterly overwhelming at first but once you sink your teeth into it you will find it quite rewarding. It can be an extremelly challenging game and isn't exactly a casual experience. When you play the game your brain feels fully invested in the task that lies before you. Learning essential hotkeys is key to reduce micromanagement which I find the trickiest part of the game. As you get deeper into the game and play on bigger maps you will need to manage your forces and strategically place them in defensive and offensive positions. I found it difficult to do this and have a tendency to just cluster all my ships in one big wolf pack. Game knowledge and micromanagement are keys to mastering Ai War.

Definitely an underrated gem and one of the most beautifully made RTS games I've ever played. Definitely recommend this game if you are are looking for a challenging and rewarding RTS game to add to your library. The soundtrack is very, very good too.

An RTS which is infinitely replayable. I will be the first to say that the controls and interface is very very hard to learn. Trying to explain it to friends and getting them into the game has been one of the most frustrating things about this game as the myriad of commands available and things to do overwhelm new players. However, if you can get past the first 30 hours of the game stumbling around clueless, you'll find an extremely sophisticated strategy game in here.

Trying out various strategies, seeing how the AI responds, thinking you've got the upper hand. This game is a combination of puzzle, tower defense, resource management, grand strategy, and awesomeness. AI War is frequently on sale, and it is the most played game on my Steam account for a reason. The developers are great, and they're always pushing out new content. A must buy for anyone who loves strategy games.

This game is hard! Dying is a good thing!On a serious note if you have the patience to learn the game, its absolutely incredible. The games last a fair while and the AI is forever harassing you at every turn.

A game i spent hundred of hours on and intend to spend more. It is a best mix of 4x, RTS and TD in existence imo. The attractive features are the automation surpassed only by Distant Worlds, complexity and simplicity both - the amount of features is enormous but they all interact in a simple "shoot each other to death" fashion. On lower difficulties it plays as a simple RTS - send units at enemy until he dies; on higher ones every game is a complex multi-layered dynamic puzzle which active pause feature helps to solve. The only mild disappointment with this game is a hard to find co-op which always results in ppl failing laughably or quitting. As devs said, "this is a game that will last you for some years". This is a game you cannot just "beat": theres always something more to try, AI will surprise sex you in all but most simplistic games and highest difficulties are impossible quite literally.

On the positive side:+ Unique setting. You are rebuilding, while the A.I. slumbers, awake it took quickly and it will strike you down in no time, advamce too slowly, and you will find yourself stuck in a meat(ship)grinder you can't win+ Unique ways to play. Be a classic fleet/base mannager, building defense, fleets and advance technology, or as a powerful single champion that grows in size and number of modules (which can be rebuildt and upgrades to suit your preferances and the situation) or do both at the same time.+ countless different maps in various sizes and shapes+ tons of options to make each game unique. Including friendly, neutral and hostile factions that can be set to impact the game to various degrees. Slubering superweapons you can repair, neutral traders that allows you (and the A.I.) to build unique and powerful buildings, and much MUCH more.+ several ways of winning the game, destory the A.I. Homeword, enlist the aid of a spire splinter faction, that will grow under your care and become the key to destorying the A.i. forever, track down the fabled Exodian Blade in order to use its power to turn the tide and much more+ two way of playing a champion, go on side mission in sealed section of the map and win to gain new moduls and EXP or Advance as your allies improves technology and captures advanced facilities (i recommend the latter)+ Many different A.I. settings as well as A.I. Plots that can change the game+ Maybe unqiue ships that are radically different where you can start with one and unlock more as you capture them from the A.I.+ streamlined system that puts focus on strategy rather on micro mannagement.+ Awesome multiplayer game

Negative:- not perticular fun as a single player game- getting to multiplayer with random people on the net is chore- certain balance issues between the unique ships (NEVER let the A.I. get a ship that shoots through shields, as you risk getting your home base fried)- champion -while powerful- quickly becomes more of a vanguard/assassin/support/kite, as a fleet can kill it in seconds. (even though it is useful to shield another player's mainbase with your own shields and drop more shield, allowing for you to save it from certain death)- no real PvP

This is an excellent game and I haven't even begun to scratch the surface! (still playing just the base game without the expansions activated, haven't tried co-op, haven't yet delved into the many different AI types). Completely different from any other RTS game I've played before. The UI and game mechanics can seem a little daunting at first, but run through the tutorials and do the two "beginner" game sets. For me, that's when the game started to come together in a big way.

Lots of strategy, lots of decisions to plan out... But behind the seemingly overwhelming sense of scope, the game is surprisingly simple. One of my favorite aspects of the game is that it's very well paced. There's not much down time, waiting for something to happen. If I can only break away for 10-15 minutes, I can still make meaningful pushes by scouting for high value targets or attacking a planet.

And of course, the AI is awesome. No decision trees, purely emergent. It's able to take my hard fought ground that I've acquired over the past 7-8 hrs, intelligently capitalize on one or two risky decisions I made, and wipe me off the map in about five minutes. Seeing that chain reaction of events unfold with literally thousands of ships being brought into play is really neat. And the greatest part about it is I *knew* what I did wrong, it didn't feel cheap or unfair in any way. That type of challenge is what immediately makes me fire up another round and try again.

EDIT: While the pacing of the game is very good, I must point out that for me personally, things don't start to settle in until around the 4-5 hr mark. In the five games that I've played so far, this is where the rubber meets the road and the AI really starts to throw some interesting curve balls. However, this is probably more due to the AI Progress ranking than any arbitrary progression of time, so I'm sure if I played a bit more aggressively I would face the complex challenges earlier in the campaign. Which reiterates one of my main likes of the game: how truly flexible and engrossing the AI can be!

They put so much effort into building the strategy side of things that there literally is no plot or immersion. For example, there are moments in the tutorial which state (in summary), "Some aspects of the AI are faked because it's more interesting to play that way." Ok, fine, but you don't need to tell the player that - a thin veil would have helped me get invested.

However, having played for a few hours, I now believe that this is part of the aesthetic. You are not in space in this game, much as you are not on a battlefield when playing chess. When you're playing this game, you are purely a human sitting in your chair fighting an AI which doesn't pretend to be "another player like yourself" -- it is a computer program, designed to destroy you, and it will. It knows what to expect from you, and will therefore not simply overwhelm you because that is an inefficient strategy; it's far more efficient to lure you in and allow your confidence to betray you.

The final stage of the tutorial is a guided "live fire" scenario, and as of this writing I've failed both times I attempted it. The first was perhaps because I was moving slowly while trying to learn the mechanics, but on the second try I seriously thought I was on the verge of victory when the AI pirouetted and demolished my entire fleet in minutes. I can't wait to see what tricks it has up it's sleeve in a real scenario.

AI War:Fleet Command is simply amazing. It's a deep and enjoyable mix of RTS, 4X, and tower defense in which 1-8 players work together against 2 very hostile AIs. I know some are unhappy with the graphics and/or the UI but don't let that stop you from getting this enjoyable and detailed game. Graphics do not a great game make although I like many do love some good graphics, and the devs have mentioned they plan to tweak the UI in the near future. For how much this game costs and it's on sale a LOT on top of that, this game will give many hours of enjoyable gaming.

You command fleets of hundreds and even thousands of ships once you get rolling and the AIs work in a very asymmetrical way in regards to the players. The AI gets angrier as the players tacke systems and other hostile actions, and if you push too hard and expand too much you can actually lose the game from making the AI too strong to handle. This delicate balancing act that starts easy to manage at low difficulties but gets much more intricate and requires a lot more thought as the difficulty climbs and you have to handle more serious threats and a faster climbing AI progress. Being both tactical and strategic in scope and allowing the players to use fine micromanagement or not so much if you don't wish too as well as so many ways to play, they've added many new victory conditions that let you choose how to win and you can turn various ships and AI abilites on and off.

Games can be very long but worth it and the co-op play can be especially rewarding. Arcen games are great devs and very responsive to the community and this game is the jewel in their crown. Absolutely worth your time and money!